Move over, Oprah

PITTSFIELD, which once proudly made General Electric power transformers for the world, is now redefining itself as the hub of Berkshire County's recreational, cultural, and artistic attractions. So it is understandable that its state representative would push a bill making "Moby-Dick" the official state book. Herman Melville wrote his tale of the great white whale in a farmhouse, now a museum, in the city's southeastern corner.

But an official state book is different from the official state cookie (chocolate chip). Legislators can be forgiven for going along with a fellow representative's desire to draw attention to a local product (the official state beverage is cranberry juice), often buttressed by petitions from schoolchildren learning a civics lesson. In the Pittsfield case, Representative Christopher Speranzo enlisted a class at the city's Egremont Elementary School. If the state is to have an official book, however, the issue deserves a broader hearing than these designations generally get.

So let the debate begin. In Berkshire County itself, fans of Edith Wharton could make a case for any of the novels written while she lived in Lenox. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who temporarily lived in the Berkshires and socialized with Melville, will have advocates for "The Scarlet Letter" or "The House of the Seven Gables." Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" will deserve a hearing as possibly the state's most influential book. "The Poems of Emily Dickinson" has to be in the mix. The Pittsfield students admit that none had read "Moby-Dick" but some might have read Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." Bostonians will put in a vote for Edwin O'Connor's "The Last Hurrah" or George Higgins's "The Friends of Eddie Coyle."

A state as steeped in politics and history as this should also consider Henry Adams's "The Education of Henry Adams," John Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage," and the histories of Samuel Eliot Morison, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and David McCullough. Roger Tory Peterson published his beloved "A Field Guide to the Birds" while a teacher in Brookline.

There are undoubtedly less literary states where the official book designation would be as lightly contested as a Massachusetts congressional race. It would be to the state's credit if a proposal for an official state book did set off a donnybrook here.

And before legislators come down on the side of any of the candidates, they should be reminded that every corner of the state has writers at work on books that in a decade could leave Melville, Wharton, and company in the dust.

In the meantime, Speranzo could boost Pittsfield's fortunes with a bill making the Shaker tape-seat chair the state's official antique chair, since Hancock Shaker Village borders the city on the west. He could, that is, unless backers of Quincy Windsor chairs are heard from.